Finding My Way Out of the Dark
by TheNonDePlume
Summary: Lily Evans was born blind. She has effectively faded into the back round of school life, until James Potter came along and stuck his nose in her secrets. Now she will have to find a way to get her anonymity back before it’s to late. AU. War is upon us.


**Summary- Lily Evans was born blind. She has effectively faded into the back round of school life, until James Potter came along and stuck his nose in her secrets. Now she will have to find a way to get her anonymity back before it's to late. AU. **_War is coming. The winner of the war will dictate the future, and those who will live in it. Lily Evans has faded into the back round of Hogwarts, a loner, an enigma and soon to be one of the most important players in the most dangerous game ever played… called war._

**A/N- IMPORTANT!!!!! just a reminder that Braille is how the blind read. It is a bunch of raised dots that symbolize letters. So when I say Lily **_**reads**_** she's really reading Braille.**

Chapter 1- Spiky Hair Dude and His Sidekick Long Eyelash Boy 

"_The magical elves did it" _

_Anonymous_

_September 1, 1977- Evans Household_

A sigh escaped Lily Evans as she dragged her duffle bag down the stairs. Her trunk was already at Hogwarts as she had only been going home for a week Grandpierre Bumblebee, otherwise known as Albus Dumbledore to the public, had told her to leave her things at school and to only bring the necessities home with her. Her long, pale fingers dragged along one of the walls. Humming she entered the kitchen and bumped into her older sister Petunia who was just leaving.

Smiling she greeted her sister good morning. "Morning Pet, how long until we leave?" Petunia Evans was ten years older than Lily and after her parents had died in a car crash Petunia had taken over in all her older sister glory.

Petunia tore her eyes away from the morning paper just long enough to reply, "Around nine thirty should give us enough time to get to the station."

"Mmhmm," was all Lily said. She plopped the duffle bag into Petunia's recently vacated chair before getting cereal and juice from the refrigerator. Sitting down she set a book on the table and started eating and reading The Lord of The Rings: Braille Edition to pass the time.

Lily Evans spent just about her entire year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, except for one week during the end of summer when she went home to visit her sister. Albus Dumbledore, who she preferred to call Grandpierre Bumblebee, spent that time in the summer helping her control her magic. Lily's magic was exponentially stronger than the other student's in her year and that required her to spend all of her time working on controlling the errant magic.

It was a muggle theory that stated that whenever one of the five senses stopped working the other four became more powerful. In the case of Lily Evans, because she was blind her magical core increased ten fold to make up for the difference that not having sight gave her. She was perhaps the only blind magical being in the entire world because magical beings all over the world had ways of healing the blind. Of course, many of these treatments had to be done soon after the incident that resulted in blindness before the body of a person became to used to being blind. It was, perhaps, most unfortunate that Lily was born blind into a muggle family, which meant that by the time Lily Evans entered the magical world none of the magical treatments would have been effective.

But humans are nothing if not resilient and Lily Evans was even more so because she was a magical being. By the time Lily was five years old her magic had created a way of sensing what was around her. Her magic told her where things were, what shape they were, and how big they were. The best comparison to what Lily's sixth 'sense' was like would be to compare it to a constant stream of echolocation. Another comparison was to a person who just _knew_ were everything was in a house that they had lived in for years so that when they walked around in the dark they still knew where everything was.

Of course, she still had problems. The main one was reading. Lily had long ago learned how to read Braille, the muggle blind alphabet, but since the average wizarding books' printed letters were not raised off of the page her sixth 'sense' did not help her know what was written. It also didn't help that she had kept the fact that she was blind from the entire school. Only the professors knew about her condition. Albus Dumbledore had long ago come up with the solution. Together they had created a spell that changed normal writing into Braille, after that they would put an illusion onto the book that made it appear to be normal.

Lily smiled into her orange juice; rich purebloods would pay almost anything to have their children tutored by the Albus Dumbledore. Fortunately, for her, it was free.

Her left hand idly turned the page in her muggle novel. Lily loved the_ feel_ of Braille letters under her fingers. She imagined that Braille was her own personal language, something that only she could interpret.

To soon it was time to go, and Lily and Petunia crammed themselves into Petunia's old VW Bug that Petunia'd had ever since her early driving years and drove to the train station. It took them about half an hour to reach Kings Cross and pass through the barrier between stations nine and ten. The sisters shared a brief hug before Lily got onto the train.

Lily quickly located an empty compartment and brought out the book she had been reading earlier. Before they had left for the station Lily had cast the illusion on the book to make it appear to have normal writing. Absently she stroked the battered cover. It had been one of the last gifts her parents had given her before they died. She had read it so many times that the Braille dots had worn down and the cover was torn and faded.

Suddenly her peaceful silence was shattered, as the door was slammed open.

A male voice resonated through the small compartment, "Hey Padfoot, Moony, Wormtail over here! I found an empty compartment! Whoa!" The young man with spiky hair stared at Lily for a second in surprise. He hadn't noticed her there before. Squinting his eyes he tried to remember who the girl before him was. Shaking his head he addressed her, "hey, um you don't mind if me and my friends sit here do you?" he smiled charmingly, but the girl barely raised her head from the book.

"No, it's fine." Was all the Red Haired Girl said.

Soon three more boys joined the first one and after giving the first boy curious glances they all loaded their stuff into the compartment. The boy that sat across from Lily moved slowly, and his aura was much more tired than the auras of his three friends.

"Hello Miss, my name's Remus Lupin what's yours?" Remus smiled and extended his hand towards her. He got his first good look at her face when she looked up from her book. She had bags under her eyes and her face was pale, her orange eyebrows were squinted together but otherwise she didn't seem overly bothered by the question. She wore thick dark sunglasses over her eyes. For some reason Remus and the other boys in the compartment all found it slightly creepy.

"Lily Evans." She brought her hand up to her chin length mop of messy, wavy orange hair and raked her hand through it. She seemed unsure for a second before grasping Remus' outstretched hand and shaking it, "um… who are your friends? After all… it would be strange to call them spiky hair dude and long eyelash boy the entire time ride." Lily's head tilted to the side slightly, but her eyes never left Remus' face. A slight smile graced her face and her eyebrows came undone.

Remus gaped for a second until he caught sight of James and Sirius' faces, then he threw his head back and laughed. Peter started laughing too; he had always liked Lily Evans. Whenever he talked to her, which wasn't much, she had never seemed to judge him. When Remus finally calmed down enough to talk he finally answered.

"Those two prats are James Potter and Sirius Black, do you know already know Peter?" A grin still lit up Remus' face and Sirius finally recovered enough to talk.

"Wha' do yah mean _long eyelash boy!_" He managed to splutter. A girl had never addressed him that way before. It was an outrage!

"Well," Lily reasoned, "your eyelashes are unusually long, oh and yes, Peter and I have met already." Her eyes drifted back to her book and she muttered something that none of them heard besides Remus who started shaking with laughter all over again.

When things settled down Lily kept to herself and ignored the boys completely for the entire ride.

……………………………..

James stared at the girl, Lily, out of the corner of his eye as he walked into the great hall. James guessed that she was about two inches shorter than him, around six feet tall. Probably the tallest girl he'd ever met. After the train had made it into the station she'd left without saying anything. His forehead creased as he thought about the mysteriously interesting girl. In his mind he reviewed what he knew about her. After she'd said her name he'd started to get a vague recollection of whom she was. He remembered that she was in his classes, that she was in Gryffindor, and that she was some sort of muggle-born loner.

He was still amazed about how she'd addressed them earlier. Padfoot's reaction amused him greatly, but he too was stunned that she'd so casually insulted them, the two most popular and dare he say it, handsome and sought after boys in school. They had all cornered Peter when they got into the carriages and found out that he and Lily Evans had had been on speaking terms since she defended him from Lucius Malfoy way back in their second year.

Supposedly she was always that unusual. According to Peter she didn't talk much but her views were always drastically different and she never monitored her words, she always said what she thought and was brutally honest about it. Peter smiled slightly when he said that, because studying history with her was mostly about her passing judgment on historical figures. Apparently Binns hated her.

To tell someone the truth Lily Evans intrigued him. She was an enigma and according to Peter great company when she felt like it. He was determined now to get to know her better, James couldn't stand not understanding something and he couldn't understand her. He knew attraction and she attracted him.

………………………………….

Lily sat down at the long Gryffindor House table waiting for the feast. A black beenie was now situated on her head. It was something Lily had worn for as long as she could remember to try and blend in with the crowds. She always wore dark, non-descript clothing so as not to draw attention to herself.

She felt her magic pass over everyone in the great hall but she focused on the sorting until she felt someone watching her.

**A/N- Hoped you liked this chapter, it's an idea I've had for awhile but I don't know how far I'll go with it. I enjoy reviews:) thanks for reading.**

Next Chapter-

Chapter 2- Unfortunately It's Monday

A/N- just a reminder that Braille is how the blind read. It is a bunch of raised dots that symbolize letters. So when I say Lily _reads_ she's really reading Braille.

_According to suicide statistics, Monday is the favored day for self-destruction._

_~Anonymous _

"A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide"

Samuel Butler

"The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it."

Danish Proverb quotes

"_To become blind represents one with a potentially overwhelming challenge; to find a new way of living, of ordering one's world, when the old way has been destroyed" _

_Sense and Sensibility_


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